10 Ballsy Movies That Kill Off A Major Star In The First Act

Now, to be fair, the trailers completely gave away Gwyneth's death, which was most assuredly supposed to be a very shocking scene. Due to that marketing bungle, the only thing shocking about the scene is the fact that it happens almost right out of the gate.

Although Contagion features an ensemble cast including such A-listers as Matt Damon, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, and Kate Winslet, there's no doubt that Paltrow was just as big of a star, if not bigger. So to see her go out like that right away demonstrated two things: 1) The filmmakers knew how to draw a guttural response from the audience, and 2) This movie was not f*cking around.

The scene immediately following her death, where doctors inform her husband (Damon) that she died, is absolutely heartbreaking and incredibly realistic.

It set the tone for how intense the rest of this movie was going to be, and it separated itself from the numerous other outbreak movies that always tended to provide the audience with a safety net.

"Oh no, they'd never kill off that big of a star until the end" is normally a safe assumption. Not so much with Contagion.